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Oracle To Buy Siebel
jondaw writes "The BBC is reporting that "Software giant Oracle is buying US rival Siebel Systems in a deal worth $5.85bn (£3.2bn) in cash and stock...'In a single step, Oracle becomes the number one CRM [customer relationship management] applications company in the world,' said Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison.""
Everybody's buying everybody again! Woo!
When do I get my office scooter?
I might be mistaken but, isn't Oracle a US company? The story makes it seem like Oracle isn't.
To compliment his German accent, Larry Ellison has also donned a monical and top hat and is now carrying a cane with a silver cobra head on it and was last seen wearing a black flowing cape. He was quoted as saying: "I'm just trying to look the part of evil genius now".
GOBACK.
Sure, our product hasn't been that good, but don't worry in no time at all you won't have any choice. We've been fattening our wallets to make sure you don't have any complicated decisions ahead of you.
Why is this a trend I continue to see in Oracle?
I'll probably get flamed by the Oracle is holier then thou crowd, but that's life.
Where did I leave my ladders at...
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been on a two week long troubleshoot call for Siebel problems, and today starts the third week. 8-12 hours a day, 100's of different _sets_ of sniffer traces, and no solution. The problem is in the application, not on the network. I am not familiar with Oracle's technical support, but it can't be worse than Siebel's, so I'm looking forward to this.
We made decision making process easier for you. You either buy oracle or you buy oracle.
Today is a big shopping day, and when that happens I love watching the buzz spread. Here are some graphs that show the spreading:
- eBay AND Skype
- Oracle AND Siebel.
- the above graphs combined.
Simpy
Oracle bought PeopleSoft a while back, and I haven't yet heard of any resultant headaches at the college I attend and work at. (PeopleSoft+Oracle setup.)
But that may be because of those coupons PeopleSoft issued while trying to avoid the buyout; they gauranteed the same level of support for some period of time I don't recall. It sounds like Siebel is going willingly, so I doubt their customers will get the same protection.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
"Siebel has needed to be picked up for some time. There are other suitors that would probably have made better sense, but it seems that Oracle is going for the number one slot no matter what the cost and aiming to become the only boy on the CRM block..."
..."then Oracle Chief Executive Ellison brandished his katana and with a scream, cut the CEO of Siebel in half"
Please help metamoderate.
These acquisitions insure that their database business doesn't suffer by suddenly NOT being offered (unlikely but always a possibility [and if I was selling DB/2, I'd worry,]) or that some NEW database engine gets a foot hold in the marketplace (more likely.)
We're seeing the death of competition in the database market.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Then I'll be impressed.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
Should I start hoarding supplies for the next crash?
Hmmm... welcome to Slashzonk; all Zonk all the time. (What, 13 articles in a row? and no screwups? they musta upped his caffeine dosage) 8^p
A couple fans told me that my last journal entry was mint; give it a shot. Hope you like.
Same thing we do every night Pinky, plan to take over the world!
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
as to what this means for IBM and their service based model. Does the concentration of big ticket erp system portend an end for db2?
When they were still in business, AT&T Wireless used to use Siebel CRM in their phone stores. They did everything in their power to lose all the customers they could. A one hour wait and two hours with a cashier to sell me three phones, all spent waiting for the cashier to click, drag, type, badger and bully my information into that worthless CRM system. Servers that took minutes to deliver the pages needed. And it wasn't the fault of the poor schmucks who worked at the store. Just imagine trying to do your job on a site that was being permanently slashdotted -- that's what I saw of Siebel CRM, every time I went in there.
And now Larry is sticking them in his cap like a feather. Well, good for them. I'm sure the Gartner Group is pleased as punch.
John
My question is: Who actually needs all this bloat? There are much simpler ways of implementing a solution that would work while saving on the license fees and consultants.
I work for a government contracting shop in Northern VA. We're living high on the government hog, and one of our clients wanted to implement Documentum. This product is so big, they've created entirely separate applications (each measuring many megs in size) just to install and configure the application. As a programmer, I am frustrated trying to maintain this. Why can't it Just Work(tm) when you drop a WAR file into the /webapps directory (Documentum is java-based, and their webtop application's WAR is 128mb).
Consultingware is a phenomenon that I just don't understand. Our client has no need for 90% of Documentum's functionality. They just wanted to share files on the web. They've spent millions on servers, licenses, and consultants (including my company) to install and maintain it. I could have written something much smaller that fit their needs, and saved them most of their money.
I don't know, maybe this is just a gripe. But when something feature-rich like PostgreSQL is available and you're hiring talented coders to maintain a HUGE application instead of writing a very small and lean one... well, I just don't get it.
Every line is code comes with a price tag. The less code the better. The smaller and simpler solution the better. Less is more. This is important when you're trying to keep costs low and compete in a competitive marketplace, which I suppose is not happening with a gov't client or a big honking corporation.
But I don't expect everyone (anyone?) to agree with me.
Interesting enough, Tom Siebel, the founder of Siebel, was once an ex-Oracle exec. I believe he left under less than pleasant terms.
Oracle is now the number one CRM company? What about SAP? They're so big and so dominant in their market that their product gave CRM systems the name "CRM" in the first place
Just a thought...
Or somethng like that.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I imagine the phone lines between Armonk and Walldorf and Redmond and Walldorf are pretty busy now. Now that this penny has dropped IBM has got to be running the calculus on how much they can afford to tick off Oracle by buying SAP. As things are today IBM does much more business with SAP than they do with Oracle so I'm guessing there's about a 50% chance they will enter the game now.
eHas eAnyone eEver eRead eSiebel eSales eLiterature?
They seem to be buying customers now.
My guess is their next takeover target is Computer Associates. CA seems pretty ripe for the pickin'.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
On the Siebel home page they describe the advantages of the merger i.e. better customer satisfaction..blah..blah blah..
But check out this on Siebel website. It has several comments on how the PeopleSoft/Oracle merger is bad for customers.
Just as an example: Peoplesoft/ORACLE merger is a loss for the CRM market.
Someone better feed these web-developers to clean up the pages!
How about some anti-trust/ monopoly action?
- Sh!t
Oh, I dunno... maybe finally, some semblance of linux support for siebel apps?
Possibly, since Oracle just released the Win version of ORACLE 10g only two months AFTER releasing the Linux and Unix versions.
Remember, with Larry, it's personal. If he has to encourage Linux to beat Bill, he'll do it. And IBM must be ROFLMAO at this new turn of events, even if they compete, they still get Linux to eat Win shorts.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It way exceeded our expectations. It's a nicer web-based solution without all the bloat. Oh, and it cost us a fraction of what the other products would have.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
...completes update to SugarCRM installation...shrugs shoulders...
AT&ROFLMAO
The market is actually contracting. Oracle buying up competitors means fewer vendors. How is that indicative of a bubble?
If there were three dozen new CRM start-ups appearing every few months -- backed by venture funding, going IPO, and then evaporating when everyone realized they didn't even have a product, let alone a chance of competing with the Oracles and SAPs of the world -- then that would be a bubble. This, on the other hand, is what we call consolidation. If anything, it's a sign that the enterprise applications companies are being realistic.
Breakfast served all day!
Oracle is a US company based in Redwood Shores, CA.
Siebel is a US company based in San Mateo, CA.
SAP is the German player in the ERP/CRM market.
.. Did anyone else notice that all these CRM companies seem to be founded and/or run by ex-Oracle people?
What kind of $$$ would Oracle have saved if their culture had enabled CRM apps to be developed inhouse instead of having Oracle people quit and go out on their own?
(Or was the push out of Oracle necessary to do CRM in the first place?)
yeah i worked at scopus, which was acquired by siebel, so i became a siebel employee.
they were polar opposities in every way
scopus was founded by a programmer
siebel was founded by a salesman
scopus was lax on dress code
siebel had a strict dress code
scopus was a very laid-back organization. one indian programmer i had to work with insisted on working 4 hours a day - midnight to 4am.
siebel had an unwritten rule that 10 hours was barely acceptable, and most people worked 12+ hours
scopus had no rules about your work area
siebel had a bunch of rules, basically amounting to No Personal Items In Sight - no posters, no toys, not even a soft drink on your cubicle desk
scopus was a technically innovative product with cool stuff under the hood and a small(ish) footprint
siebel was bloated and clunky and gigantic
scopus was user-unfriendly because of lack of documentation and lack of consistency (naming standards, etc.)
siebel had every tiny little widget fully documented and uber standardization
scopus was run by a nice guy who was loyal to his employees and gave a lot of money to charities
siebel was (is) run by an arrogant asshole
what really got to me at siebel was the way the whole company has 2-3 marketing filters. it was suffocating because of all the sales-marketing bullshit encrusted onto everything.
for example, IN THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT, when you were making a new project, you had to create "Business Objects." WTF why were they called "Business Objects"? because it appealed to the C_O crowd and gave them little hard-ons to see words they recognized instead of confusing technical stuff. the whole product was like that - full of little marketing flair where there should have been efficient user tools/labels/whatever.